Keeping It Cool: Effective Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Trout Streams

Climate change poses many challenges to maintaining trout populations, including changes in peak stream flow, altered flow regimes, more frequent and intense disturbances, and higher stream temperatures.  In order to determine effective climate change adaptation strategies, we examined three case studies of trout stream restoration that address existing and climate-driven causes of degradation.  The case studies vary in geography and complexity but all include restoration efforts intended to address multiple causes of stream degradation and improve the resilience of these streams to floods, droughts, and wildfires.  Four elements of successful climate adaptation projects emerge:  1) habitat assessments that help drive project location and design, 2) projects that directly address climate change impacts and increase habitat resilience, 3) projects that achieve watershed-scale impacts, and 4) projects that include sufficient monitoring to determine their effectiveness.  We describe solutions to common challenges in conducting climate change adaptation, including how to balance scientific assessments with opportunities when choosing projects, how smaller projects can be aggregated to achieve watershed-scale benefits, and how citizen science efforts can augment monitoring programs.